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Australian PM Latest Hacker Spam Subject
David Utter
Staff Writer
2007-02-19
 Insider Reports RSS Feed
News of Australian Prime Minister John Howard surviving a heart attack has become the latest enticement to trick people into clicking a malware loaded link and corrupting their machines.
 | | Australian PM Latest Hacker Spam Subject |  |
Once clicked, the link would drop malicious code onto a victim's machine. Then the link returns the regular 404 "File not found" page for the publication, The Australian.
Security firm Sophos has reasserted its caution to people to be suspicious of such "breaking news" emails. It's an old ruse in the book of dirty tricks criminals use to attack machines.
"The scammers have registered several domain names that appear to be associated with 'The Australian' newspaper, and have gone to effort to make people think that they really are visiting the genuine site by pointing to the real error page," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos.
In this instance, the email is a faked news report about Howard suffering a heart attack at his home. His condition is grim, according to the message, and Howard is fighting for his life.
However, a quick look at the homepage for The Australian has several Howard-related stories on topics like politics, Iraq, and a long-standing friendship between Howard and US Vice President Dick Cheney.
Invoking the names of the famous in spam is an old chestnut. George W Bush, Vladimir Putin, and plenty of other politically noteworthy people as well as celebrities have been the subjects of previous spam attacks.
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Tag: Spam
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About the Author:
David Utter is a business and technology writer for SecurityProNews and WebProNews.
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